VIENNA (Thomson Financial) - Austrian cardboard and carton manufacturer
Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG said net profit in the first quarter fell 4.9 percent
year-on-year to 27.3 million euros due to difficult market conditions.
Domestic analysts had forecast a net profit for the three-month period of
around 30.5 million euros.
As a result, results for the first half are expected to come in slightly
below last year's level, Mayr-Melnhof Karton said in a statement.
The continued high cost of raw materials coupled with an inflation-triggered
slackening in private consumption in Western Europe remain a challenge,
Mayr-Melnhof said.
First quarter sales however, rose 7.5 percent on the same period a year
before to 452.9 million euros, while EBIT increased to 44.4 million euros
compared with 42.2 million a year before, Mayr-Melnhof said.
Mayr-Melnhof said it plans to concentrate on high performance sites and to
this effect will close its cartonboard mill in Nikopol in Bulgaria and will
transfer its activities to a more cost efficient mill.
In its outlook, the company repeated it expects business development during
the first half-year of 2008 to be characterized by unchanged high costs as well
as demand and currency driven price pressure.
fiona.flanagan@thomsonreuters.com
ff/rfw
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